Hot where you are?

You’ve probably heard enough from us about how hot it can be in Chad, but did you hear about what you do to survive the heat without air conditioning? Maybe some of you can try it this summer if you want to save on some electricity bills.

1) Open all windows at night to let the cool air in, and close the windows and sometimes curtains too in the morning to keep the hotter air out.

2) Cook outside.

3) Enjoy a cold lemonade under a shady tree.

4) Cover yourself. Cover yourself!? If you have to be in the sun, lightweight clothes that cover more skin will feel better than having the sun beating down directly on your skin.

5) Occasionally dunk your head in a cool bucket of water in the heat of the day. Leave it to drip dry.

6) Step in the shower with your pj’s on before going to bed. The wet clothes on your skin will give you a cooling effect as you try to sleep. It helps to have a little air from an open window nearby.

greetings?

When you greet people in different countries, it is a good idea to know what is normal for their culture. Depending on how close we are with a person here, we might just say hi or say hi with a hand shake. If we are close with the person, we might give a tight hug. Some countries greet with a cheek to cheek kiss, a kiss on the lips, or a bow. Coming from America, we are glad that kissing in not one of the ways to greet in Chad.

When you greet someone in Chad, it is a greeting with a handshake. You need to make sure that you only use your right hand for this for reasons that I will not reveal in this blog. When we would walk down the street carrying something, we would try to make sure that what we carried was in our left hand (we never mastered carrying on the head). We did this so that we wouldn’t accidentally greet someone with the wrong hand. And if you entered a gathering of people, you would go around and not only greet the one/s you knew, but also the entire group, one by one, with a handshake. “Inte afe.”

hungry?

Thanks to the French military and UN presence, there is a growing variety of food available in the capital of Chad. We took advantage of that often when we were in the capital. But if you really wanted to eat the way most Chadians do, you would probably get tired of their food after one day. That is because they eat what they call boule for most of their meals. It is made of boiled ground millet. (You can buy millet seed in the States, usually for bird food.) It’s boiled into a consistency similar to that of play-doe, but the part that makes it nice most of the time is the sauce that you dip it into. This is usually made of a leafy sauce spiced up to be quite tasty… most of the time. A platter for the boule for everyone to share off of, and a bowl for the sauce for everyone to dip into. No table and chairs, and best of all, apart from the one platter and bowl, no dishes to clean up afterwards. Bon apetit!

Remember to check out our online store, Shell Artists!

Friends

One thing nice about working with your family overseas is that you get to know people and develop good friendships with people from different parts of the world. After spending 10 years working in Chad, Africa, we’ve obviously gotten to know some Chadians and their culture well, but we’ve also become good friends with people from different parts of America, Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, England, Korea, Brazil, Argentina and Australia. It has been great working beside all of these people. Eventhough we come from all different parts of the world, to see that God has given us the same Spirit to reach the people of Chad. Our children have had an amazing time playing with these families’ kids over the years too. The memories of their time together I’m sure they will treasure for the rest of their lives, and hopefully will be able to keep in contact with at least of few of them as well.

We opened an online store! The store is called Shell Artists

Translating Predicaments

Last week, Art came across a verse in Acts that mentions 4 words that can almost be taken as synonyms. This becomes especially hard to translate into a language that doesn’t have all the descriptive words that Greek does, or English, French, or most other well developed languages. For example, we have the words “beautiful, pretty, elegant, etc.” Dadjo only have “good” to cover all of those. The verse in Acts mentioned the words, “adore, worship, praise and thank” all together. How much fun do you think Art had with translating that?!

Chad Today

Today in Chad is hot for mid-May. Temperatures are forecast to reach 106F degrees today. Considering that they are 6 hours ahead of us here in Chicago, their day is already cooling off from the peak of the day. Ideally there is enough rains by this time to keep the temps closer to and under 100F. The rains are starting to turn the land a little green, but it is still a little while before people start planting in their fields. They want to make sure that the rains are consistent enough before laying the seeds down. Last year it did not rain very well in some areas leaving many short on food. But we also don’t want too much rain to come which can drown out the crops yielding little to no harvest for another season.

Computer problems

Last week we had another almost-setback. Art started his work in the morning by opening up the computer and starting the translation program, only the program decided it didn’t want to start, and when it finally did open, all of Art’s work from the past week disappeared. This is very frustrating as you can imagine. Not only is it a lot of work that is lost, but it is also a lot of work (sometimes several days) to get the program working again. Thankfully this time it only took a couple of hours to get it working. And better yet, with some outside help, all of Art’s work that had disappeared was restored. Phew!!



tidbits

Ever think about traveling to Chad? Now is not a good time as the weather is still very hot. Right now, the left over heat from dry season mixing with the high humidity of rainy season coming makes it awfully muggy. Later on, as rainy season starts to feel nicer, it is still not a good time to travel because many of the roads become very muddy and some become impassable. The country is working on paving many of the roads, which is very nice, but they still have a long way to go. After rainy season is over, about September-October, it is still not a good time visit Chad because the temperatures start to rise and there is still a lot of humidity left over from rainy season.

So WHEN would anyone want to travel to Chad. Spend your New Year’s celebration there. The air is finally dry and there is a couple of months of cooler (80-90F) weather. But don’t get stuck there too long or your flight out may be canceled due to harmattan. That’s when there is so much dust in the air that the planes can’t see enough to land on the runway. 🙂

Why Bible Translation?

Because Jesus is alive! We have hope in a hopeless world because of Him.

Last year when Art was testing Luke in one of the Dadjo villages, an old man was listening in. After Art was finished the man stood up and said something to the effect of, “I’ve never heard anything like this before. This is good. We need more of this.”

We opened up a new site for pictures. You can contact us for the password to get in at avilesartist@gmail.com
Click here to go to the site.